UPDATE 1/10/2023: I’ve uploaded much better versions of the stories in FLAC and high quality Mp3. Unfortunately the full episodes are still only available in 64kbps Mp3 so if anyone happens to have better versions, I’d really love to hear them.

WINTER’S TALES was a series of scary stories “best told by the light of a fire” produced by the CBC in the winter of 2004. It was part of their Sunday Showcase series. Each hourlong episode features one original radio play (usually around 30 minutes long) and the rest of the hour is filled out with spooky poetry or other readings that fit the chilling mood. Three of the four stories were later featured in CBC Monday Playbill’s horror anthology DEEP NIGHT in the summer of 2005. Here are the episodes:

2004-01-04 Someone Just For Me (by Michael O'Brien)

Sharon needs to talk to Maureen about an episode from their past, a cruel prank turned sinister, that has had very disturbing results for her. Also featured in this episode, a reading of Charles de Lints’ humorous look at the dating life of monsters, Trading Hearts at the Half Kaffe Café.

2004-01-11 Man Radio (by Leslie Mildiner)

A shock jock, who has made a career of shredding his guests and vandalizing the night with his radio theater of cruelty, finds it's true that what goes around, comes around. Filling out the hour is the conclusion of Charles de Lints’ Trading Hearts at the Half Kaffe Café.

2004-01-18 The Snow Child (by Marcus Youssef)

Inspired by the Russian fairy tale of Snegurochka, this is the creepy tale of an older couple who will go to any lengths to get a child of their own. Produced and directed by Heather Brown in Vancouver. Also features a large selection of gothic poetry read by Lorne Kennedy and Catherine Disher, including: Alone and Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe, To Night by British poet and playwright Thomas Lovell Beddoes, The Demon of the Gibbet by Fitz-James O’Brien, Victorian poet Thomas Hood’s comic sendup of gothic poetry Mary’s Ghost, Remembrance by Emily Bronte, The Sunlit House and The Call by British poet Charlotte Mew and several poems by Quebec poet Anne Hérbert.

2004-01-25 Ice Screams (by Drew Hayden Taylor)

Ryan is terrified of the lake. Not surprising, given that he barely escaped drowning one winter when the car he and his parents were in, crossing the lake on an ice road, went through the ice. Now, as the sixteenth anniversary of his parent's death approaches, he is prepared to master his fear. But perhaps in his case, the childhood terror of what lurks in the icy depths is entirely justified.

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